


Fated Friends and Allies

by Current521



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Soulmates AU, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 16:37:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21018896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Current521/pseuds/Current521
Summary: Everyone has soulmates, many of them. Percy has more than most.





	Fated Friends and Allies

**Author's Note:**

> AU where everyone has tattoos of their soulmates’ names. Note that people can have multiple soulmates, that they can be platonic soulmates, and that the mark appears as it becomes true, not from birth or when they meet them.

Percival is the third of seven children, and the first one to be born with a soulmark. Delicate red letters snake down his baby arm in elegant cursive,  _ FrederikJohannaJuliusVesper _ . No spaces either. As he grows, the words do not, but as each of his siblings are born, more names are added, until his arms spells out  _ FrederickJohannaJuliusVesperOliverWhitneyLudwigCassandra. _ And when Cassandra is born, a single name is on her arm, matching those on Percy’s in colour and font:  _ Percival. _

Johanna has her husband’s name across her shoulders, dark grey print, and her children as they are born in bright green letters over her right thigh. She has others, half-faded marks of half-forgotten lovers, bright yellows for friends she still holds dear. The same is the case for Frederick, the way their marks match, though not always the exact same, a true sign of them being destined to be together.

As children, the de Rolos all have almost matching marks; their siblings, their parents, the other children around the castle who they grew up with, but Percival and Cassandra were the only ones born with any. They do not show any particular favouritism towards one another in their younger years, but the de Rolos should have taken it as a warning.

Percival gets a scar on his lower back that he hates more than life itself; a “signature” from Anna, after days of torture. He is delighted - for the first time in a year, he suspects - when solid dark letters cover it, naming the captain of the ship he had made his home after leaving the only one he had ever known.

He is saddened, years later, when he notices that it has faded to a dull grey, but the scar is still not visible, so he lives with it.

Keyleth is the first of Vox Machina, a lush forest green cursive on his lower leg. He shows her, and she shows him, in turn, the bluish-white, almost invisible word  _ Percival _ on her right shoulder. 

Pike is next, to his slight surprise, a silvery-white word across his left wrist. She shows him the brilliant yellow on her ankle saying, to his surprise,  _ Percy _ . “Not Percival?” he asks, and she shakes her head. 

“You’ll always be my Percy.”

He nods, he can live with this. 

The twins, as they are wont to do, appear together.  _ Vex’ahliaVax’ildan _ , in one word like his own family, dark grey across his shoulders - where his parents had each other’s names, he remembers. Vax shows him the delicate green  _ Percival  _ just under the cuff of his sleeve, right below  _ Keyleth _ in a solid print and dark red. Vex has his name below the cuff of her sleeve as well, but it is a bold type, and bluish-black. 

Grog appears much later, simple and dark brown, all uppercase, on his foot. He shows Grog, who doesn’t quite understand, but the two share a quiet moment as Percy identifies and reads the words across Grog’s back -  _ Pike Wilhand Scanlan Vax Keyleth Vex Percy _ \- and tells him carefully what each word looks like, using words that Grog understands. It is the first time, Percy realises, he has truly been alone with Grog without a pressing fight.

Scanlan appears late, much later than Percy feels it should have. Much later, he finds out, than his name appeared on Scanlan’s skin. He loves Scanlan like the family he is, but it is another few months before the name appears. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Scanlan says cheerfully. “You’re not the first person I’ve experienced this with.”

Percy nods, and tells Scanlan - as the first person since his family died - that he was born with soul marks. Scanlan is full of wisdom he shouldn’t have, Percy thinks, as the gnome says, “Sometimes, people are so connected to who they were at birth that they can never let it go. As long as it makes no difference for your life choices, you need not worry.”

Two days later, a little flourish of black is present on his arm, normal and contrasting to the silvery-white  _ Pike _ .

Later, when Scanlan asks Percy to get his newfound daughter out of jail, he shows him the brilliant purple  _ Kaylie _ on his lower arm. “I met her two days ago, I found out that she’s my daughter last night, but this was on my arm this morning.”

Percy nods at the gnome, suddenly serious for a moment. “I was born with these,” he says, tracing the now-familiar red words on his arm. “Just the first four. But I had not yet been allowed in my mother’s room after Oliver was born when his name appeared. Same for Whitney and Ludwig. I was there when Cassandra was born, but still… It was there the moment she took her first breath. She came out with my name on her. My mother developed our names, she said, as we were born, our father as we took our first breath.” He smiles down at Scanlan, a rare sight, in many ways. “I think parents have them, always. The moment you knew, she was there.”

Scanlan takes a deep breath to steel himself as they approach the prison.

Tiberius is a faded grey on Percy’s shoulder, gone almost as fast as it appeared, as though the universe couldn’t quite decide.

_ Lillith _ is almost invisible, white against his pale skin, but Percy notices the word on his chest one day anyway.

As they pull Gilmore out of the rubble, Percy’s sleeve slips back, and he notices the delicate word  _ Shaun  _ in purple on his wrist, opposite from  _ Pike _ and  _ Scanlan _ . He has no time to think of it, but he’s sure it’s new. 

When they are back in Whitestone and Percy has a moment, he carefully looks over his body. There’s a baby blue  _ Allura _ in the crook of his left elbow, a platinum and almost invisible  _ Kima _ on the back of his heel. These, along with Shaun’s, surprise him more than they perhaps should have. “Close friends and allies,” he reminds himself. Percival de Rolo was born with four soulmarks, and should not be surprised that he makes connections that easily. 

The little, pale yellow  _ Kashaw _ on his upper shoulder appears the day after the printed  _ Zahra _ matching her color of her skin appears on his side. These surprise him little, now; he has learned. 

The first time he and Vex shares a bed, he looks over her marks. There is  _ Vax’ildan _ , dark red cursive, and almost identical to Percy’s  _ Cassandra.  _ She was born with it, she tells him, as Vax was born with hers. This makes total sense to Percy. 

She has his own name, as he’s already seen, just below the cuff of her sleeve, the bluish-black print stark and bold against her skin.  _ Keyleth _ tucked below her shoulder blades, a pale spring green,  _ Grog _ looking much like the one Percy has, on her lower leg,  _ Pike _ in brilliant yellow in her hairline,  _ Scanlan _ is stark purple against her side,  _ Zahra _ across her hip in black cursive,  _ Tiberius _ , faded and almost invisible on the side of her foot,  _ Shaun _ in the colours of the sand of Marquet on her ankle,  _ Trinket _ in solid brown just below her collarbone - Percy chuckles at that, he will admit -  _ Kashaw _ in an almost-invisible beige on her other hip,  _ Velura _ matching  _ Vax’ildan  _ on her opposite arm,  _ Elaina _ , faded but there, brilliant white across the back of her shoulders  _ Allura _ in a rich navy blue on her thigh, and  _ Kima _ in a matching colour on her back. She remembers not when she got any of them, she is not Percy, she does not care for the legacy. She cares for the people, and Percy loves her for it. Most are recent, she does tell him, very much so, and Percy knows in his heart that he had many of these people on his skin far before she did. 

The first name Percy has that cannot be hidden by normal clothes is a repetition;  _ Vesper  _ across his right palm, small print in the same shade of red as his siblings, appearing mere seconds after he and Vex decides to name the child in her belly that. Vex laughs a little when she sees it. “Well, we really must stick to it now, darling,” she says, and Percy laughs with her and kisses her, because married with children is not the way he imagined his life to go, but he is okay with it. 

More names appear on his palm as Vex gets pregnant more and more times.  _ Whitney _ is first after  _ Vesper _ , then  _ Julius _ and  _ Vax'ildan _ together, and finally  _ Johanna _ . More names begin appearing on his wrist, just below where his own children are, as Cassandra marries and has children.  _ Ludwig  _ and  _ Frederick _ are both written there, in the same font and colour, and below them, in a soft blue print,  _ Trystan _ , Cassandra’s husband.

Percy has more names, and always will. After the war, as Scanlan attempts, with more determination and less distraction, to properly repair his relationship with his daughter as well as with Vox Machina, and Percy sees more of her. He notices, one day, a little purple  _ Kaylie _ curling around the outside of his elbow. As Scanlan and Pike have children, their names appear too, a neat and ordered list down Percy’s thigh, and in simple, delicate print the colour of Pike’s name on his wrist. As Vex attempts - for her siblings’ sake - to repair her relationship with her father to at least some degree, Velura starts spending Winter’s Crest in Whitestone every other year, and Percy finds his sister-in-law’s name just below her siblings on his back, in the same font, though her colour is a muted green. Velura reveals to him, when he shows her, that Syldor has  _ Vex’ahlia _ and  _ Vax’ildan  _ on his arm, just above where it says  _ Velura _ , and in the exact same colour and font. When he tells Vex this, she snorts angrily, but cries shortly after; she is pregnant for the fourth time, and Percy has learnt to let her cry, so he holds her, and feels an odd - and, he convinces himself, entirely imaginary - burning sensation where  _ Scanlan  _ is written on his body, reminding him that loved ones and soulmates are not interchangeable concepts.

Percy has always loved too deeply. It was a fact known to him from the time he was old enough to understand the red swirls that had graced his arm for as long as he had been alive. It was a fact confirmed to him again and again as he grew up, pale yellows tracing childhood friends down his leg, a fact he thought gone during days of torture under the hands of Anna, a fact he was reminded of again when he saw Cassandra fall and had no option but to leave her, hoping against hope that she would live. A fact that he was reminded of again with the solid black covering scars of torture, and when Keyleth appeared barely within a month of knowing her. And a fact he swore off the first time he knew he loved Scanlan, and there was still no extravagant Gnomish flourish anywhere on his body.

Because the truth was, Percy realised, when  _ Vesper _ appeared on his hand, that Percy did not love too easily or too deeply. Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klussowski de Rolo III was burdened, from the time he was born, with a fated legacy, and his fate intertwined itself with those around him. He was not fate-touched like his brother-in-law, had no control, but invariably pulled those he befriended and those he loved into the whirlwind that was his legacy. And that, he knew, was why Scanlan had been late to appear; because Scanlan refused, through some enormous effort of unconscious will, to keep his fate separate from Percy’s, for years. But that had not meant that Percy’s fate was separate from Scanlan’s, and once they were in, they were in for good.

In his later years, Percy made research on the soulmarks. They had been a fact of life as long as anyone could remember, but no one knew where they were from, or what purpose they served.

He learned that soulmates did not have to be people with positive influence on your life, and had a horrible thought. He shook it off, until that same evening, when his daughter looked at him strangely and asked, “Papa, who is Anna?”

“Someone we knew long ago, dear. Now, off to bed,” Vex said, and ushered the children to their rooms, returning as soon as she could to where Percy was, still frozen in his chair, in the sitting room. She ran a hand over his neck. “It doesn’t mean anything, darling. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Percy moved, for the first time in minutes that felt like hours, to look at his wife. “Help,” he said, and he could recognise the look in Vex’s face. It was the look she had when she looked at him as a broken man.

But she nodded, pulled him to his feet, and took him to their bedroom. She reached into a cabinet, and pulled out something Percy hadn’t seen in years, and handed it to him. “Put the mask on, darling.”

Percy complied, fitting the bird’s face over his own. He felt Vex’s hands on his shoulders, turning him away from the mirror, and removing his jacket. Percy let her remove his clothes, slowly and carefully, until he was standing naked in the middle of his bedroom, save for the bird’s mask he hadn’t worn in over a decade.

Vex’s fingers were gentle as they traced his skin, her voice a soft whisper as she read aloud.  _ Anna _ as her fingers brushed the side of his neck,  _ FrederickJohannaJuliusVesperOliverWhitneyLudwigCassandra _ down his arm, as familiar as breathing,  _ Vesper _ on his hand, followed by  _ Whitney _ then  _ JuliusVax'iladan _ and  _ Johanna _ , below that  _ Ludwig _ and  _ Frederick _ then  _ Trystan _ . Up his other arm, starting with  _ Pike _ on the inside of his wrist, then  _ Shaun, Scanlan, Allura, Kashaw _ . When she reached his shoulder, her voice catches a little.  _ Vex’ahliaVax’ildan _ she whispers, then, after a break,  _ Velura _ . Then she gasps.  _ Orthax _ she says, her fingers brushing his side, forcing her voice calm.  _ Zahra _ . Her fingers softly brush his lower back. “I can’t read this one,” she whispers, “it’s an old one.” She squints her eyes for a moment, forcing them to see.  _ Jett _ . She kneels down as her fingers brush his thigh.  _ Devon. Reito. Alseiass. _ Then, on his lower leg,  _ Keyleth _ , and on his foot,  _ Grog _ . Up his other leg,  _ Kima _ on his heel, then a little hesitation, then  _ SylasDelilah _ as she brushes the back of his knee.  _ Rory _ on the side of his thigh, and  _ Coralee _ \- misread, initially, as Coral, faded as it is - on his side. A small hesitation, then she squints her eyes.  _ Lillith _ , she says, tracing a finger over his chest.

Vex stands back up, and gently removes the mask from Percy’s face. She kisses him quickly. “That’s all,” she whispers. She puts the mask down, and takes his hand. “Come to bed, darling. We can talk in the morning.”

Percy shakes his head. “Not this one,” he says, brushing the side of his neck. “The others can be covered, but this one is too clear.”

Vex nods. “Stay here, I’ll be back in a moment.” She returns with an inkwell, a brush pen, a standard pen, and a thin, delicate sewing needle. “I don’t know if you can tattoo over soulmarks,” she says, “but my brother gave me a Vox Machina tattoo once, matching the one he has, and I am willing to try it.”

Percy nods. “So am I. And the ink stain will cover for now, if nothing else.”

Vex nods. She draws up the standard Vox Machina mark she and her brother shared - VM, in Elvish letters - and proceeds to go over it with the needle. She manages it with little blood, and lots of apologies. Percy quietly lays his hand on his wife’s leg, because he knows she would never hurt him, and he loves her so much for trying that he cannot feel the pain. She finally drags the brush pen loosely over his skin, smearing as much ink as she can.

“I don’t know if healing it with magic will make the ink go out,” she says.

Percy smiles, despite himself. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt.”

Vex raises an eyebrow, but leaves him be. “Goodnight, darling,” she says. “And remember; Vox Machina will always be our soulmates.”


End file.
